Teeming with "Sea Life"

Dolphin after a fish
Kids watching the dolphin cruise around.
Reed with his net.

The banded tulip snail wrapping around his shell to flip over so he can motor back out to the safety of the turtle grass. Notice how the snail itself is black with tiny white dots...really pretty.
The juvenile file fish...so tiny!

Sea horse
Tiny baby spider crab

The kids and I had a very exciting trip to Emerson Point on Wednesday. I packed lunch and we headed down there about 11AM and left at 3 PM. As we were locating a spot to set up, some ladies who were there with their little kids informed me there was a shark cruising around right off the shore. They said they had been watching it for about 1/2 an hour and were sure it was a shark. They pointed out the dorsal fin to me and I thanked them for the heads up. I also noted an abundance of people fishing the area and quite a lot of fish activity going on in the water. So, as we headed down a little ways, we were watching the water. Before we had even set our things down, the "shark" took off, parallel to the shore, after a fish. He was swimming so fast, he had wake behind him. Let me just say, this was so cool and we were fascinated! We saw a big fish jumping out of the water in front of the "shark" trying to escape. Then the "shark" slammed the fish up out of the water, caught it and ate it (evidenced by some thrashing in the water). That was about the time I saw and heard the "shark" breathe through its blow hole. Not a shark at all, but a dolphin! I have never seen a dolphin in its attack mode and can I say, "How cool!" The dolphin hung around for another hour or so just cruising around fishing. He did try to catch one other fish and that was when I was able to snap a few pictures. I don't think he was successful the second time though.

Reed took his dip net with him down there. My rule is that you have to carry whatever you want to take, as my hands are full with the bag of necessities, the lunch cooler and my chair. He spent hours dragging his net along the bottom through the turtle grass. He would drag it, pull it up and then examine all of the things he caught. And he kept yelling, "Mom, this place is so full of sea life. Man, look at all this sea life! This is the best place for sea life!, etc...sea life...etc..." He was really cute. And boy, did he catch some really awesome things - as you can see from the pictures. He netted tons of juvenile shrimp, a juvenile spider crab, a toad fish (my picture is too blurry to post), 2 sea horses, a sea scallop, 3 pipe fish (related to sea horses...they look just like a piece of turtle grass and so, consequently, we never managed to get a picture where they were discernible), a juvenile file fish, some other type of crab whose name I've forgotten, a big banded tulip snail, piggy perch and probably some other things I'm forgetting. The biggest problem with all these critters is that I don't know what all of them are. I am learning, but when Reed asks what something is and I have to remind him he is talking to the wrong parent. So, we take a picture, toss the critter back and Daddy identifies everything we can't once we get home. But, to our credit, Reed and I are getting better and better at identifying stuff. We are amazed at what an AWESOME God we serve who created such an abundance of life and equipped them each so exactly to survive!

Well, now that you all are bored to tears and wondering why I thought I needed to write a novel about the "sea life" we caught...I'm done. I've got some posts in the works about recent happenings, but the tile floor is beginning to resemble a "dog-hair rug." And that is just gross...so I've got to go vacuum and mop.